Title: Free Food for Millionaires Author: Min Jin Lee Published: May 2007, Grand Central Publishing
I’ll be honest, I picked this book because I wanted something frothy and featuring wealthy people. I googled books like Crazy Rich Asians, and this came up.
Min Jin Lee wrote Pachinko, which was an unforgettable read, so I was quite surprised that she also wrote this, but this one is a debut novel, and I find that many of them mine the author’s own early life.
Free Food for Millionaires is not a novel about rich people. It is a coming-of-age story about a young Korean woman from Queens who is struggling to find her way in the world with the weight of the expectations of an Ivy League degree and her own idealism on her shoulders.
The novel opens with fight over family dinner when Casey’s father sneers at her indecision and unemployment, and Casey is unable to respectfully hold her tongue. The night takes an even more disastrous turn when Casey lands up her white boyfriend Jay Currie’s apartment.
Like Casey, Jay is an outsider to the priviledged world of their wealthy Princeton classmates, but unlike Casey, he has scored an investment banking job, and so can live in relative style. There is a element of Jay Gatsby in this Jay’s desire to be part of New York’s upper crust, and his obsession with Casey, who a bookseller compares to Daisy Buchanan.
But the novel put me more in the mind of Theodore Drieser’s Sister Carrie or Edith Wharton’s Lily Bart, young women trying to make their way in the world of New York with stars in their eyes.
Free Food has the twin hallmarks of chick lit with its preoccupation on the romantic and career trajectory of the young woman. There is a whole sub-genre of chick lit set in the world of investment banking, and Casey’s preoccupation with fashion and the good life again calls to mind consumerlit.
The novel evades the confines of popular literature, however, in the way that the narrative plants do not always pay off. I did not see the first disaster coming, but I did see the second, and the third.
I came to this novel expecting a light read, and I got a saga. Lee’s skill is how she gives you a true sense of her many characters, including those we meet only a couple of times, like Casey’s priviledged and irrepressible best friend Virginia or the rare bookseller she meets towards the end of the novel.
I have to say I was kind of exhausted by the end of the novel, but I also suspect it will stay with me, just as the much more accomplished Pachinko did.
Lisa Kleypas’s Wallflower series follows a group of four young women, who find themselves watching the Season from the sidelines. Each has a problem that makes her beneath the notice of the England’s eligible bachelors.
Annabelle Peyton is beautiful and has the right pedigree, but her family is too poor to afford a dowry. Lillian and Daisy Bowman are rich, but nouveau riche and from America. Evangeline Jenner is painfully shy, with a stammer.
They make a pact to pool their resources and help each other find husbands, starting with Annabelle who is the oldest.
Secrets of a Summer Night – and honestly, I think this series could have done with better titles, the whole seasonal thing having only peripheral relevance – begins with the young ladies at a ball at which they vow to not resign themselves to their fate. Annabelle does have a suitor, a Mr Simon Hunt, son of a butcher and now a wealthy businessman who she once shared a passionate kiss with. But she abhors his brashness and is snobbish about his origins, even as she is attracted to him. Hunt, for his part, is determined to have her as his mistress.
Simon Hunt had learned at an early age that since fate had not blessed him with noble blood, wealth, or the unusual gifts, he would have to wrest his fortune from an often uncharitable world. He was ten times more aggressive and ambitious than the average man. People usually found it far easier to let him have his way rather than stand against him. Although Simon was domineering, perhaps even ruthless, his sleep at night was never troubled by pangs of conscience. It was a law of nature that only the strong survived, and the weakest had better get the hell of the way.
Simon has hankered after Annabelle since he first encountered her, but given his origins, did not have a hope of gaining the interest of her beauty and breeding until it became clear that her lack of dowry made her unattractive to her peers. His problem, however, was that he “had not yet figured out how to make Annabelle want him, when she was so obviously repulsed by everything she was”
Annabelle supposed that some women might find his robust masculinity appealing – even she had to admit that there was something compelling about the sight of all that bridled power contained in a crisp formal scheme of black-and-white evening clothes. However, Simon Hunt’s arguable attractions were completely overriden by the churlishness of his character. There was no sensitive aspect to his nature, no idealism or appreciation of elegance … he was all pounds and pence, all selfish, grasping calculation.
When the wallflowers decide to make a list of men that could be Annabelle’s targets, she has almost no idealistic criteria. “Any peer will do,” she says carelessly, but then stipulates: “My ideal husband would be the exact opposite of Mr Hunt.” So, of course, we know what will happen.
While Simon “had no ambition to become a gentleman any more than a tiger aspired to become a house cat”, as the aristocratic men circle Annabelle, waiting for her to become desperate enough to consent to being a mistress, Simon, as the alpha male of the pack, has seen his chance.
The action moves to a house party at the estate of the Earl of Westcliff, where Annabelle sets her sights on the handsome but boring Lord Kendall. With a wardrobe borrowed from the Bowmans and the other wallflowers scheming to support her, Annabelle makes good progress with Kendall – except that she is pursued by Simon, who is also at the party as Westcliff’s guests.
The writing is snappy and the sparks between the central pair as bright as they should be.
“Have you ever considered making at least a pretense of humility, Mr Hunt? Just for the sake of politeness?” “I don’t believe in false modesty.” “People might like you more if you did.” “Would you?”
Simon wants to see Annabelle only sexually, but his concern for her is obvious when she falls sick, and finally they have to be succumb to what everyone else knows.
Once they marry, Annabelle’s financial troubles are over, but she has to deal with the adjustment of largely being cut off from aristocratic society. Meanwhile, Simon’s humble family is suspicious of her, as is Westcliff, who is convinced she was only after Simon’s money. It takes a fire in which two people die for Westcliff to be be convinced of Annabelle’s devotion. Only then can all that’s well end well.
While Annabelle and Simon were figuring out that they had more than the hots for each other, there were some fractious scenes between Lillian Bowman and Westcliff, who are the subject of the next novel It Happened One Autumn.
There’s quite a bit of Pride and Prejudice in this novel. Westcliff’s first impression of Lillian is not promising, and she thinks he’s a stuffy old shirt. Westcliff respects Lillian’s father as a business associate, but he comes from one of the most renowned families in England, while the Bowmans are essentially American upstarts. Lillian’s mother is as embarrassing as Mrs Bennett. There is even a Lady Catherine figure in the countess, Westcliff’s mother, who imperiously schools the Bowman girls into some semblance of polite society. There is a Mr Wickham figure in the form of Westcliff’s rakish friend St Vincent, who also pays court to Lillian.
Both the “summer” and “autumn” books have a second obstacle to be overcome in the form of a disapproving figure to won over – Annabelle had to convince Westcliff of her love of Simon, while Lillian has to convince the countess she is worthy of the Marsden name. This is one of the rare romances in which there is a mother-in-law figure – there was potential for it in the previous one with Simon’s mother, but there was barely one scene with her – though it goes in completely unexpected direction (to me at least).
Like Bewcastle in the Bedwyn books (and shades of Darcy of course), Westcliff realises that having done his duty all his life, this completely inappropriate woman is the happiness he will finally allow himself.
Once their relationship is consummated, it’s unclear where the narrative will go. It takes a direction that completely surprised me, which is rather rare for a romance novel.
Devil in Winter begins where It Happened One Autumn left off with Evie Jenner making a pact with the devil in the form of Sebastian St Vincent. They decide to wed out of purely prosaic reasons – Evie needs to escape her abusive family and Sebastian needs a source of funds.
I did briefly picture Evie and St Vincent together in It Happened One Autumn and then gave up on that given where that novel went, but it appears a rake can and will be rescued. How sweet, shy Evie manages this is quite delectable to read.
Finally, we are left with Daisy in Scandal in Spring. It’s a nice twist to have the patriarch intervene and insist on an American prospect, who of course Daisy insists she hates, until she meets – or reencounters – him. Matthew Swift seemed too much like Simon Hunt in the beginning – a self-made man from the wrong side of the tracks – but then he distinguishes himself by a) having quietly loved Daisy for years b) having a secret that prevents him from acting on that love. Daisy is a dreamer, the complete opposite of the worldly Swift, but he appreciates her for exactly this difference, even as her father is trying to bribe him into marrying her by compensating for her “flaws”.
This book also has a somewhat unexpected twist at the end, but of course, ends happily.
What I appreciated about this quartet is that each novel and the central characters were sufficiently distinct. I was really hardpressed to pick a favourite, though I possibly enjoyed the first two best.
They also dealt with real difference between the central characters. In several of the romances I’ve read recently, the central couple are essentially from the same background, which is probably more realistic. Kleypas manages to surmount the difficulty of caste/class differences by making the outsider American albeit wealthy enough to make the pairing realistic.
The prequel of sorts to the series, Again the Magic, has two romances. The primary one is between Aline, Lord Westcliff’s sister, and her childhood sweetheart, a stable boy-turned-business magnate McKenna. There’s more of the steamy passion and misunderstandings in this coupling, but I preferred the relationship between Lady Olivia and the cynical American Gideon Shaw. Livia is very young but has something of a widowish quality to her while Shaw has St Vincent’s insouciance but also more wordly wise.
Finally, there’s A Wallflower Christmas, which I thought would be just one of those 10 years on kind of books, but it turned out to be quite a charming story in its own right, with an honorary wallflower at the end of it.
Rafe Bowman, the eldest Bowman son, has been ordered by his father to marry the beautiful and titled Lady Natalie. To suss out what she’s like the wallflowers invite her companion, Hannah Appleton, over to tea, and sparks fly between her and Rafe.
Initially, I thought Rafe, a non-titled, selfmade man of sorts, was quite similar to Simon Hunt, but he distinguished himself in his rakishness. Some of this – such as when he grabs and kisses Hannah with a speech that is uncomfortably close to “yes means no” – might offend modern sensibilities, but Rafe redeems himself in other ways.
Hannah is your classic poor relation, the prim and proper governess type whose passion is unleashed by an outrageous man. Unlike the Cinderella stereotype, though, Hannah is not ill treated. She is treated with kindness and affection, but is yet she is firmly on the fringes. For example, when their group arrives at the Westcliff estate, she helps Natalie get dressed and then is ordered downstairs although she has no time to freshen up herself.
Hannah accepts this as the order of things, and is not in the least resentful, remaining committed to Natalie, even when it is obvious Rafe prefers her. The letter he writes to her is one of the most romantic I’ve ever read.
I didn’t expect to love this one, but it was more than a bonus for me.
Have you read this series? Which book was your favourite?
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